To: Nancy Myers

From: Djavan Branting

Date: April 11, 2022
Subject: APLED 121-Chapter 4 Summary

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CHAPTER 4
OBJECTIVES IN TECHNICAL COMMUNICATION

Achieving Clarity in Technical Communication

• Provide Specific Detail-When communicating you want to use specific adjectives

and adverbs to describe it. Be clear with do you want to write as to not confuse
the reader.
• Answer the Reporter’s Questions-when communicating be sure to always
answer who, where, what, why, and how. These are the basic building blocks for
every letter and can be confusing if they’re not included.
• Use Easily Understandable Words-when going about technical writing always
remember that you’re not writing a novel, so trying to impress your reader with
your advanced vocabulary is not going to work necessarily. Use simple to
understand words that do not have to be looked up in a dictionary and get
straight to the point.
•
Simplifying Words, Sentences, and Paragraphs for Conciseness

• Conciseness Saves Time-keep it simple stupid.

• Technology Demands Conciseness-in a similar fashion to the previous section,
you need to keep it simple for the reader, especially since a lot of platforms have
limited space.
• Conciseness Improves Readability-when writing, in general, you want to
consider your audience’s reading level as the average American is at a lower
level.
• Limit Word Length for Conciseness- when writing using shorter words is a must
to convey your message in a concise way, but when needed it is OK to use a
longer word.
• Limit Sentence Length- when writing you want to limit the amount of “be” verbs
you have so you don’t have as many run-on sentences. And make sure to use
active voice.
• Limit Paragraph Length- effective paragraphs consist of four to six typed lines.

Achieving Accuracy in Technical Communications

 • Proofreading Tips-- let someone else read it for you, let it sit for a while, print it
out, use technology, and read it out loud are all affective proof reading tools
when writing.

Organizing Technical Communication

• The following are ideas to help organize your paper: analysis, spatial organization,
chronology, importance, comparison/contrast, problem/solution, and cause/effect.

The Writing Process at Work

• Prewriting-It’s just a form of brainstorming and getting a basic outline of what

you want to write down on the paper.
• Writing- writing is your first draft. You’ve already gotten an idea of what you
want to write and now you’re getting it on the paper. This is not your final draft
but this is more of a rough draft.
• Rewriting-rewriting is essentially going back in and touching up on your final
draft.